With Common Core, Palmyra schools set a good example for other districts: Editorial

Many of the attacks on Common Core come from the same ideological quarters that have long blasted public schools for not being rigorous enough.

A ninth-grade science class at Palmyra Area High School.VICKI VELLIOS BRINER, pennlive.com

Give the Palmyra school district credit for enthusiastically embracing the K-12 learning standards known as “Common Core,” despite the controversy they have provoked in some other parts of Pennsylvania.

In addition to preparing traditional report cards, Palmyra teachers will send home detailed reports on how the student’s work compares to the learning standards.

Common Core was developed by national experts and educators concerned about the dismal ranking of U.S. students on international measures of educational performance. The standards basically say, “Here’s what a student getting a top-notch 21st century education should be able to do, at each grade level.”

But districts can go ahead on their own. In Palmyra, there has been little pushback.

Ironically, much of the complaining about Common Core comes from the same ideological quarters that have long blasted public schools for not being rigorous enough.

The more extreme critics see a dark conspiracy, in which the federal government aims to brainwash kids with politically correct messages, while enriching companies that produce standardized tests and stroking Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates’ ego. (He’s a champion and big funder of the effort to spread the standards nationwide.)

Some see a future in which students are forced to be “wearing wristlets, using facial recognition [technology], a pressure-sensitive mouse, and a whole host of other invasive techniques,” as one PennLive commenter put it. All this despite the reality that nothing in Common Core requires students to be technological guinea pigs.

States are also free to decide whether or not to embrace Common Core, or fine-tune the standards, as Pennsylvania was doing before Gov. Corbett intervened.

Local districts remain free to decide whether they will do anything differently because of Common Core. According to state education department spokesman Tim Eller, “curriculum alignment, textbook selections and instructional materials are decided at the local level.” The standards merely state what students should be able to do; districts still decide how to teach those skills to students.

There are concerns, but they are far more practical than philosophical. The standards can contain fairly abstract criteria, phrased in educational jargon that is baffling to mere mortals not schooled in educational theory.

For example, seventh graders are expected to “Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly, as well as inferences, conclusions, and/or generalizations drawn from the text.”

The standards can also be confusingly unspecific. Third-graders are supposed to be able to draw three-dimensional shapes, but the materials don’t say which ones.

To be meaningful, of course, these expectations need to translated into plain language for parents and students. Palmyra superintendent Lisa Brown says the district is doing just that, developing a layperson’s guide to the standards. Other districts will need to do the same.

Other parts of the standards are surprisingly ambitious. First-graders, even those still learning to read, are expected to be able to write a couple of sentences about what they’ve read, with accurate capitalization and punctuation.

Often “kids are surprised what they’re capable of,” Brown says, in defense of setting high standards.

Fortunately, what is not part of Common Core is the repeated, rote “drill and kill” test preparation that saps anyone’s enthusiasm for learning.

“You are not going to see test prep in our classrooms,” Brown says. Instead, you’ll see kids getting the capabilities they need to perform well on tests.

Nor are non-core subjects like art, music and sports shortchanged. “They’re not extras in the curriculum, they’re essential,” Brown says. She is grateful that the Palmyra community has made sure schools can keep those offerings, despite the recent tough economic times.

Of Common Core, Brown says, “They are just high-level literacy and math standards. They’re very similar to the Pennsylvania standards we’ve had previously.” By adopting them, she says, “We’ve just upped the ante a little bit.”

That is just what Pennsylvania needs. What is doesn’t need is a controversy blown out of proportion by exaggerated, made-up scenarios or complaints about some of the minor, and easily fixable, flaws.